Book arrived here safely today. And it's from my wishlist too :) Thank you so much contraforsa for the book and the lovely card! (I would love to see the Acropolis one day, especially the Nike Temple and the Parthenon ^-^)

This has been waiting quite a long time on my shelf (never seemed to get around to reading it), but now have finally started (a little while ago - prompted by a wishlist tag). I'm about halfway through now, but it's a rather long book - just over 600 pages with smallish print.. (though strange enough it doesn't look very fat or big :p). So far I'm enjoying it. The book will go to Vekiki once I've finished it (wishlist tag).

Update March 26th: I finished the book over the weekend. Still not quite sure what to think of it.. I like John Irving's writing style, the story was quite amusing, a bit strange, and also tragic at times. But it was rather long and dragged a bit in the middle (with all those stories inside the story too), and not sure what to whole point was (just that everyone dies..?). It was funny to see that both Garp and Irving are annoyed by the question whether their work is autobiographical (something I usually don't care about. But there seemed to be some similarities in The World According to Garp/Garp's life and The World According to Bensenhaver (the reviews/blurbs as well - feminist book by a man or something like that) and perhaps Irving's life as well? Or maybe he just made everything up :p). Anyway, I guess I enjoyed the story overall, even if it could have been a bit shorter. Seems there is a movie too, am quite curious to see how they've managed to capture Garp's whole life in a couple of hours..

Thanks again Contraforsa for giving me the opportunity to read this book. :)

Journal Entry 6 by Vekiki at London, Greater London United Kingdom on Saturday, March 31, 2012

Thank you!

i am looking forward to reading this, I enjoyed Irving's work before, I like his writing style. Though I do have a massive TBR so can't promise it'll get read soon :(

And thank you for the chocolate you included too - yummy yummy, I had it as a treat for finishing my homework this afternoon! Great wrapper, I am saving it to use in some sort of papercrafting... so all in all a pretty awesome little parcel, helping me get into the weekend :)

Journal Entry 7 by Vekiki at London, Greater London United Kingdom on Saturday, December 08, 2012

Released 2 yrs ago (12/8/2012 UTC) at London, Greater London United Kingdom

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Ok. i have given up on this book despite being about 300pages in! the writing is very good. The charecters are very life-like; rounded and well drawn.

But nothing really happens...

maybe I'm just not in 'the mood' for this kind of slow smoulder novel, but I just found myslef uninterested and anxious to move on to other reads

I spotted this on someone's wishlist so I am sending it off as a HGG gift :)

Journal Entry 8 by JPix at Southampton, Hampshire United Kingdom on Thursday, December 13, 2012

Thanks very much Vekiki for sending me this book fron my wishlist as a holiday gift!

Journal Entry 9 by JPix at Southampton, Hampshire United Kingdom on Wednesday, September 10, 2014